


Hades in Bray

by gloriousthorn



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Greek and Roman Mythology, Hellenistic Religion & Lore, Hozier - Fandom
Genre: Eventual Fluff, F/M, Hozier, Romance, just imagine if Hozier followed YOU on Instagram
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 00:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousthorn/pseuds/gloriousthorn
Summary: Siri and Pina have always been the closest of mother-daughter teams, even going into business together as successful designers.  But their world was turned upside down when Pina met a musician on the very verge of making it big—and made a choice that would change all their lives forever.Four years later, Pina reflects on what her life has become as she prepares to return to the musician.  He's been waiting patiently for her.  He knows she'll be back.





	Hades in Bray

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inalovelyplace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inalovelyplace/gifts).



> Rated Mature for sexytimes, pretty vanilla.
> 
> Gifted to Inalovelyplace for the kind encouragement on my earlier work, "The Tenant's Cottage."

This is the third turn of the season at which I’ve set up some broke friends from grad school in my apartment, left behind my suits and heels, and reassured my mother that I’ll be reachable at a moment’s notice, hugging her through her tears and nodding when she asks, “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“Mom, this is the third time now. Haven’t I come back in the spring both times?”

“Of course. It’s just— I’ve never been invited to stay with him, I’ve never met his parents…”

“They’re artists, Mom, they… you know, march to their own beat.”

“Artists.”

“You work with artists all the time.”

“City artists! The kind who don’t go hiding out in the country for months at a time. The kind who would come to the city and sublet a place, or stay in your lovely apartment, it’s not like we’re old-fashioned—”

“Ellen, Ricardo, they have their places upstate.”

“Well, they don’t take my only daughter overseas with them for Thanksgiving and Christmas— for her birthday, even— ”

“Mom…”

“All right, all right.”

The conversation probably isn’t going to change. I know this at the airport in September, Mom standing there in the jacket with the batik-inspired leaf print I did for the fall collection, watching her e-mail furiously with one hand and sip a venti latte with the other. I smile, a little ruefully but not much, as I pay the excess baggage fees and sort my claim ticket and boarding pass into my passport wallet: nonstop to Dublin, returning March 20.

“We just never used to be apart,” she sighs. “You know, Pina. I’ll just miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

“And you’ll be back?”

“Andrew will be starting rehearsals for festival season once spring starts. I’ll be back.”

“You think this is going to be every year?”

That’s hard to answer. Andrew’s schedule doesn’t make things easy. I go with something vague. “I’m sure things will work out,” I say. “Listen, I’m going to go ahead and get through security and everything before this line gets too crazy.”

“Call me when you land. And again when you get settled.”

“Yes to both, Mom.”

“Oh, Pina, honey. I love you.”

“You hold still. You’ve got your hands full. I’ll hug you—” I tuck my passport wallet in my bag and give her a big hug, with both arms— “You know I love you too.”

“Bye, sweetie. Please be safe.”

“I’m safe with Andrew.”

She sighs. Her eyes are welling up.

“I hope so.”

***

It was four years ago. I’d just had enough, as one does sometimes. The business was doing incredibly well— Mom and I both have the article from the _Journal_ framed in our offices, SIRI LINDEN ADDS DAUGHTER TO DESIGN EMPIRE, GOING PUBLIC AS LINDEN AND LINDEN— after the IPO, and I’d planned a jaunt through the British Isles after finalizing a deal for a new line at M&S. I’d told Mom I was taking off for a couple of weeks, which of course she understood but didn’t love. Still, what could she do? I was twenty-six and the “hip, fresh face of a brand that has been synonymous with Scandinavian restraint— until now,” as _Forbes_ put it. I was expected to be out with Crown Prince Hussein or a Greek shipping magnate, but I hadn’t been on a date in two years, working sixty hours a week— thirty or forty in the studio, another twenty or so hobnobbing and getting my name and face out there, all the while convincing Mom that, together, we’d generate millions in new, youthful corners of the market— and I was, all of a sudden, ready to feel young again. 

I didn’t even know what I wanted to do, really. It was just turning spring, the damp, chilly British winter slowly giving way to brighter, warmer days but still plenty of wet, cool weather to go around. I caught up with my British friends from SCAD and Tisch who were working on some cool projects in London; I did whiskey tastings in Scotland; I took a long weekend on the Isle of Skye. I’d never been to Dublin, so, a few days before I was set to fly back to New York, I caught a quick flight over to Ireland and grabbed an issue of _Time Out_ lying on a bench at the airport. I checked into my hotel, picked a club at random from the listings, and dressed in something that would let me blend in a little: just a plaid flannel shirt, skinny jeans, and Doc Martens, my hair in a messy ponytail. 

The club was just at the bottom of a short flight of stairs leading down from the street, and I ordered a Blackthorn and waited for the show to start. I remember what I was thinking when he walked out: _Great, some skinny white dude with a guitar._ I may have actually yawned. 

Until I heard him sing. He was electrifying. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. After a song or two, the club, which had been relatively empty, slowly got more crowded, as folks who thought they’d just stop in for a quick drink on the way to somewhere more interesting, stuck around. I never wanted him to stop. The way he married anguish and torment with lyrical beauty and an incredible range was magnetic. 

And when he did, and came over to the bar for a drink, I couldn’t quite look at him. I didn’t want to chance being recognized— I’m hardly a Kardashian sister, but the odd papparazzo was happy to get a shot of me to mix in with the models and pop singers, to add a “serious” angle to a photoset— but more than that, I was shy, a feeling entirely foreign to me. Mom had been a household name in a certain kind of household since before I was born, and I’d never felt I didn’t belong anywhere. But here in this underground club, surrounded by university students and artsy types and cheek-to-cheek with this skinny white dude who played like a demon and sang like an angel, I finally felt out of my depth.

He picked up on it, of course. He was drinking something dark and he leaned over and said, “New in town, then?”

“Just visiting,” I murmured, trying to sound casual, not wanting to meet his eyes.

“From America,” he observed.

“Yes. New York.”

“Quite a place. So I’ve heard. Hoping to get over there later this year.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Touring my album.”

“Ah. Good for you.”

“Well, we’ll see.” He finished his drink. “So what do you do in America?”

“I’m a designer,” I said.

“What do you design, then?”

“Oh, fabric and home goods. We license some of the fabric designs to furniture and clothing companies, and then we also do our own lines—”

“We?”

“My mom and I. We run the business together. Linden and Linden?”

“Oh, sure.” He finished his drink. “You must be Pina.”

“That’s me. And you’re…?”

“Andrew. I’ve seen your stuff on Instagram now and again.”

“You follow me on Instagram?”

“My mam got me interested. She really liked the Stella McCartney collaboration last year. She knew that rose gold look you were doing would be huge. Bit surprised to see you in hole in the wall like this.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m glad I stopped by.”

“Want to come out for a bit?”

I looked at him then. Only this unexpected boldness could finally force me to meet his eyes— which were arresting, a clear, defiant green I could never remember seeing in anyone else— and I felt my face grow hot. I had, at that point, sat in rooms with billionaires and members of the House of Lords and MacArthur Geniuses and God knows who else. But he rattled me. It wasn’t just the songs, though it certainly was the songs, the ones that sounded ages old and forged from somewhere deep in the earth, the ones that sounded like birds of prey and scythes cutting down wheat in wide-open fields. There was a quiet, easy confidence to him— like of _course_ I’d leave this club with a musician I’d met ninety seconds before— and that was supposed to be mine. I was supposed to be the one who could go anywhere, ask anyone anything. I was rattled.

I’d met my match. Right then and there I knew it. Sure, there was the matter of a few minutes, hours, weeks, months of back-and-forth, some of it sexy and fun, some of it boring, more of it than I’d have liked involving my mother and the business. But I knew it. I’d gone underground. 

In some ways, I’ve never really come back.

***

We walked around the city for hours. After the pleasantries and preliminaries, pub grub and another round of drinks, we ended up making out in the gazebo in St. Stephen’s Green, and then he took me back to whatever flat he was “borrowing” (it was, and remains, unclear how he has access to the wide variety of living spaces that he does) and showed me his skillset beyond the guitar, which was, and is, impressive. It was going to hurt when I had to leave in the morning, I knew, when we’d exchange numbers and probably never see each other again, which I started thinking about basically as soon as he rolled off me and I could catch my breath. But I was so tired— from the travel, the long late evening walking around the city, and then of course the not-insignificant amount of time we’d spent in bed— that I fell asleep before I could dwell on it too much.

He was gone when I woke up, and I panicked for a few minutes— _where even am I? Is there Uber in Dublin? Is my phone still charged?_ — until he returned, still in last night’s clothes, his long hair gathered into a sloppy knot, a paper bag in one hand and a tray of coffee in the other.

“You didn’t think I’d left you here, did you?” he asked cheerily.

“Well, you did,” I pointed out, a bit uncharitably.

“Oh, only for a minute. Got us some breakfast. Join me in the dining room?”

“I guess.” I got up and slipped my shirt on, sticking my phone in the breast pocket and still buttoning it as I came into the dining room, where he was laying out scones on plates and slicing open a pomegranate.

“Ah, good. Eat up,” he said.

I sat down, and my phone buzzed. I took it out. Mom: _Everything okay? I didn’t hear from you at all once you got to Ireland._

“My mom,” I said.

He nodded. “Go ahead and have a bite before you get back to her,” he suggested. “She’s waited this long. You must be hungry.”

“I am, actually.” I took one of the scones and half of the pomegranate, which I had always loved, and scooped out a spoonful of the seeds. 

“Pina,” he mused. “Are you sure?”

Just as I was about to eat the seeds, I stopped. “About what?”

He smiled then, a slow, sexy grin that expanded into a chuckle. “Pomegranate seeds,” he said. “The food of the underworld.”

“Sure. Hades gave Persephone the pomegranate, and she ate the six seeds, which created the fall and winter.” I licked the seeds off the spoon, enjoying their slippery sweetness, the soft crunch of them between my teeth. “So am I stuck with you now?”

I meant it as a joke, but he sat down and gave me a long look. I noticed then that he hadn’t eaten anything yet, but he leaned towards me, just a little, and ran his hand up my leg and under the front tail of the shirt, and I shuddered, the last of the pomegranate seeds sliding down my throat, and there was that feeling again: that I’d been outmaneuvered somehow, that I was finally in over my head. 

I forced myself to meet his eyes. They felt ancient, eyes that had stared down generations of empire and lost none of their fire, insubordinate and absolutely clear. 

“Tell your mother,” he said, “that you’ll be a little late coming home, why don’t you.”

***

I stayed a whole extra week, in the end, and only left when he had to start getting ready for his dates, promising that we’d stay in touch and connect in New York at the end of the tour, which, six pomegranate seeds and an equal number of nights of lovemaking in that Dublin flat, was still not quite something I believed. I went back to New York and bore Mom’s roughly twenty-seven million repetitions of “Oh, Pina, I was so _worried_ , you’ve never done anything like this, what do you mean you _met_ someone, a _musician_ …” I closed the door on the studio and worked in black, violet, deep magenta, dark blue for weeks— silhouetting ghostly, paper-thin flowers in the bruise palette, even while New York bloomed in brighter colors all around me. I’d sit in the Conservatory Garden, surrounded by roses in blood red and creamy white, refreshing his Insta and Twitter feeds like I’d learn something new even while he texted me: _Three more months. Two more months. Seventeen days. Forty-seven hours. I’m coming for you, Pina._

The day before his show in New York, there was a courier at home with VIP tickets and every kind of pass imaginable for the show, and a note from him: _Come home with me. All the way home. — Andrew_

I texted him: _Got your message_

 _Well?_ He texted back instantly.

_I’ll be at the show._

_What about the rest?_

I hesitated. 

_Don’t leave me hanging, Pina. I’ve missed you like my own blood._

I looked around my apartment, the top two floors of the quadruplex in Brooklyn Heights Mom and I bought after the IPO. Everything just so, including and especially the desk where I worked from home in front of the picture window overlooking the Promenade and, beyond it, the river and the Manhattan skyline. The gardens along the Promenade were still bright with color, but starting to show their first signs of fading: the blooms thinning out, the hues not quite as vivid as they’d been. Could I really just pack up my laptop and my sketchbooks and a few outfits and take off for Ireland on two days’ notice?

Between my teeth, blossoming from the tip of my tongue, there came a sudden taste of pomegranate.

I could, I decided.

I texted back: _All right._

***

We flew back separately, but he picked me up at the airport and drove me out to the countryside, where he’d grown up. He pointed out his parents’ house, but we didn’t go there, instead going to a house whose provenance was again unclear and going straight to bed. 

I’d told Mom before I left, of course, but still she wasn’t thrilled when I called on the second day. “Ireland?” she said. “Again?”

“It’s possible to go places more than once,” I said, lamely.

“I didn’t know you were planning this.”

“I...wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Andrew. The musician I met? He invited me to come and...visit him.”

He smiled from across the room, where he was tuning his guitar. _Put her on speaker,_ he mouthed, which I did.

“Visit him? For how long?”

“Um.” I really had no idea. 

“As long as she likes,” he called.

“Is that him?” Mom snapped.

“Um. Yes.”

“Hello, Mrs. Linden,” he said sweetly.

“Ms. Linden. There was never a Mr. Linden.” She sighed. “Well, call me Siri, I suppose. Everyone does.”

“Hi, Siri. Is it odd for you now, everyone saying that to their phone all the time?”

“Well, at least now people can spell it. Listen, Andrew, it speaks well of you that you’re interested in my daughter. She’s a brilliant, lovely, special young woman…”

I made a face.

“...but, you know, she has responsibilities. She runs things with me, in every respect, creatively as well as the business side. She has a beautiful home, friends, everything here.”

“I’m sure all that is true.” He pushed a handful of hair out of his face. “It looks to me like she’s been hard at work. I work on my music, she’s answering e-mails, doing sketches, designing things on the computer. She seems pretty busy.”

“Well, yes. Pina works very hard.”

“So, she can work here.”

“You know, I’ll speak for myself, you two. That’s enough triangulation for one day.”

“It was nice to talk with you, Andrew. Maybe we can meet properly someday soon.”

“I certainly hope so.”

I took her off speaker. “Mom,” I said, “give me some time. I’m staying on top of things from here. Let me handle the European portfolio for the next little while.”

She didn’t say anything for a long minute. Finally she said, “Call me every day.”

“Every day.”

“E-mail, calendar, stay on top of it. The conference calls too. Boo-hoo on the time difference.”

“Yes, Mom.” I rolled my eyes.

She paused. “This is what you want right now?”

I looked over at him, his hair falling over his face as he started to pluck out a song. Feeling my look, he lifted his head and smiled. I don’t know how he’d heard her, but he mouthed: _Is it?_

I nodded to him. To Mom I said, “Yes. It is.”

 

***

 

So I stayed there. I slept in his bed every night, and usually brought him along when I had meetings in London or Paris. As his single got more play, we eventually turned up on the gossip blogs when we stepped out in the city, and, preferring our privacy, I took to traveling alone. I missed him (like my own blood, I thought sometimes, knowing then what he’d meant when he’d said it to me), and couldn’t wait to touch down in Dublin and then take the train to Bray. 

Mom didn’t like it one bit, and who could blame her? It had always been the two of us, Mom never interested in either romance or co-parenting; she conceived me with a sperm donor when she was thirty-seven and never looked back. Work and me, her two great loves, and when I joined the company, it seemed like the three of us would be together forever. She governed all the great rhythms of the business, the seasons, the cycles of designing new things and deciding which old ones would get a second life; I was the renewal, the shot of youth that made Mom’s brand— sometimes called “classic” or “understated” but others “conservative” or “throwback” — a critical darling again. Then too there was the satisfaction of knowing we’d each turn up at the office early or stay late, always having someone to go to lunch or yoga with. The partnership was the icing on the cake. We really did become best friends.

And coming back in the spring wasn’t easy on either end. Andrew and I both wept on our last night together; we made hasty plans to stay in touch, to come back together in the fall when his summer festival tour would wind up. And then I was back in New York, Mom beside herself with joy and anxiety, chattering away to make up for the last six months, and me strangely not cheered up by the crocuses and snowdrops I saw pushing themselves up out of the soil in the gardens on the Promenade.

I had missed Mom, but I _missed_ him. Mom and I are morning people; he’s a night owl, and when I was with him through those long winter nights, we’d stay up late talking beside the fire, him singing bits of songs in Irish or flipping through my sketchbook and choosing his favorite designs. It would get cold at night, I think, but it never occurred to me to mind; we wouldn’t go anywhere, just stay inside and listen to the wind howl and wrap up in sweaters and blankets. That strange mix of ice and fire is what calls me back, among other things: the acute awareness of the winter existing alongside the imperviousness we create together.

I don’t know what to do without either of them in my life. Mom made me who I am; Andrew inspires me to continue to become. I go back to Mom in the spring and summer to create; I go to Andrew in the fall and winter to lie fallow for a time, to listen, to be refilled.

 

***

 

So: four years later, having calmed Mom down as much as ever will be possible and remembered to call her when I landed, here I am on the train to Bray like anyone else. I don’t pack too much, just the essentials. I meet Andrew in yet another house he’s rented, this one a beautiful old Tudor— “You could buy your own place, you know, you could afford it, we could buy something together” — and he’s waiting for me, his hair too long and his body dressed in entirely too many clothes, shirt and jacket and scarf and he hasn’t even taken his shoes off, and I’m crazy with desire after having not seen him in six months.

“Pina,” he says. “You came back.”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

He grins. “No,” he admits, “but still it’s nice to have it confirmed.”

I smile at him. “Take me upstairs,” I say.

“With pleasure.” 

We leave my things in the foyer and he leads me by the hand to the bedroom, cavernous and scarlet. “So many layers,” I say, pulling off his scarf.

“Ah, well, that fall chill is already in the air, coming in off the water,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket.

“Let’s do something about that.”

He kisses me, hard, lifting my hair off my neck as he runs his fingers along my scalp. “Pina,” he murmurs, “how do we survive this time apart?”

“Well, I don’t know, but here we are.”

“Here we are. Here you are. Let me undress you.”

I nod. He lifts off my sweater, pulls me close to him. He lowers his head down to mine, breathing in my hair; I slip off his shirt and hold his waist, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek. I can feel a tear slip out of my eye. He’s alive in a way he isn’t across all those months of texts and phone calls and photos, a few of which I regret later but not many: our blood coursing through our bodies here in the same room and time, the same wind blowing through the open window tousling both our hair and raising goosebumps on both our chests and arms. We are in the same world again, a balance restored here on the autumnal equinox.

He slides me into bed and tugs down my skirt, my tights, and my panties, and then kisses me again. Our chests press against each other and I swear I feel our heartbeats move into sync. I swear, when he kisses me, the first thing I taste is not his tongue but the tart, sweet hint of the pomegranate. Just for a moment. Then it’s gone, and it’s pure him. But I can’t forget it. 

We make love in the waning light of September. When we finish, we eat popcorn and Pink Lady apples, and watch cat videos and read poetry until it gets dark and we’re both tired from the jet lag, the sex and emotion. 

The world turns to night, to fall, to the colors of dying leaves and winter storm skies. We sleep late; I wake up, check my e-mail, assure Mom that all is well. He plays some new songs, makes some notes in his notebook. I am safe with him, I’m sure. I don’t ever consider not coming back. I never wonder what would happen if I didn’t.

Maybe nothing. Maybe just a taste of pomegranate on the equinox, forever, to remind me. 

I don’t think I care to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> "Siri" is a play on "Ceres," aka Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and the mother of Proserpina/Persephone. And of course "Pina" is a play on "Proserpina."


End file.
